Ahead of XP’s end of support, Reserve Bank of India asks banks to take ‘immediate steps’

With less than 20 days left to Windows XP’s end of support, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued an advisory to nation’s banks. India’s central bank of institution has asked bank organizations to take ‘immediate steps’.

Launched back in 2001, Windows XP went ahead to become a major success. The operating system became so popular that Microsoft let it hang around for an industry record of over 12 years. But as of April 8th, Microsoft will stop providing security support to Windows XP.

Surprisingly, there are still millions of banks and ATMs that are running the 12-year-old operating system. In developing nations such as India, things are even more alarming. “The probability of attacks on such a system may increase and it may be difficult to defend such attacks in the absence of Microsoft support,” RBI told the Banks.

“As some of your systems, including ATMs, may still be working on Windows XP, you are advised to take immediate steps to implement appropriate systems and controls in this regard,” it added.

Windows XP is set to reach its end of support on April 8th.

Update: As pointed out by a reader, the ATM(s) are running an embedded version of Windows XP. That’s true. But, although Microsoft has licensed that OS to run until 2016, the support for that too will end come April 8th, 2014.